Bloody Winter: A Pyke Mystery Read online

  Jonah Hancock barged Pyke out of the way and stared down at the corpse. His hands were trembling. ‘By Gad, it really isn’t him, is it?’ Turning to his wife, he added, ‘How could anyone think it was our son? This boy looks nothing like him!’

  Pyke wanted to take Cathy in his arms and tell her that everything was going to be fine but he stood aside to let Jonah comfort her. Jonah simply patted her arm and said, ‘Someone should go home and tell my father …’

  ‘What you did was reckless, sir, and even worse, it needlessly endangered the life of my son,’ Jonah Hancock said, once Pyke had explained what had happened on the mountain. One of the constables had escorted Cathy back to the Castle.

  ‘I still don’t believe that second letter was sent by the men who’ve kidnapped your son,’ Pyke said, knowing this didn’t wholly justify the decision he’d made.

  ‘But you’ve no proof, have you? Admittedly it’s not the same handwriting but that can easily be explained. One of the other kidnappers could have scribed it.’

  Pyke looked uneasily at Superintendent Jones, who had said very little. He had to admit that Hancock had a point. ‘What we need to do is find out who shot and killed that man up on the mountain. It couldn’t have been one of the kidnappers. Why shoot one of their own?’

  ‘So let’s assume that someone else found out about the arrangement and decided to try and put a stop to it. Shoot this chap and have done with it,’ Jones suggested.

  ‘Perhaps.’ Pyke shrugged. ‘I just can’t see what was gained.’ He turned to Hancock. ‘Your son is still missing and we still have all of the ransom money.’

  Jones nodded, similarly bemused. ‘You said Johns saw the assassin? That he’d be able to identify the man again?’

  ‘One of them, perhaps. He made a good point. It takes considerable skill to shoot a man at such a distance and kill him, so the person who pulled the trigger was a trained marksman. A soldier, probably.’

  ‘Why on earth would a soldier want to kill one of my son’s kidnappers?’ Hancock said, angrily.

  ‘For a start, we don’t know whether the dead man was one of the kidnappers or not.’ Pyke went to retrieve the rent book he’d found in the man’s pocket. ‘There’s no name in here but it says the man lived in Dowlais on Irish Row.’

  ‘So what are we waiting for?’ Hancock said. The sweat on his forehead glistened in the candlelight.

  ‘Irish Row?’ Jones seemed unconvinced by this. ‘You’re saying this man is Irish?’

  ‘There’s only one way to find out,’ Hancock said, rubbing his hands together.

  Jones and Pyke shared a troubled look. It was the superintendent who spoke first. ‘I think you’d better let us take care of matters from here, sir.’

  Hancock’s face reddened with indignation. ‘It’s two miles to Dowlais. If not by my carriage, how do you intend to get there? Walk?’

  ‘Irish Row after dark?’ Jones said dubiously.

  Pyke looked at him, and then at Hancock. ‘I don’t see we have a choice.’

  ‘They’re a wild lot and they live in squalor you simply wouldn’t fathom. But I still can’t believe that an Irishman or a mob of Irishmen would do anything as bold or rash as kidnap Mr Hancock’s son. That kind of undertaking requires planning and capital. Most of the Irish here are just trying to survive.’ Jones glanced at Hancock, waiting to be contradicted.

  Pyke watched them, their wariness in one another’s company, and thought about what Johns had told him: that the police had stood by while the bullies – bought and paid for by the Hancocks – ran amok among the strikers.

  ‘What I don’t understand is why a bunch of Paddies would want to pick a fight with us,’ Hancock said. ‘We’ve been damn good to ’em, shipped ’em over here and gave ’em work.’

  Pyke looked out of the dirt-smeared window. Even with four horses, the carriage was struggling to negotiate the thick mud. ‘I’m told you used Irish labour to break the strike a few years ago and drive down wages.’

  ‘Nothing illegal in that.’

  ‘No, but it must have caused resentment between the Irish and native workers.’

  Hancock chose not to respond and crossed his arms.

  This was Pennydarren Road, Jones explained, to fill the silence. It hadn’t been metalled, which made it impassable at certain times of the year. Eventually it turned into Dowlais Road, with its string of squat terraced houses clinging to either side.

  ‘And Dowlais is where the other great ironworks is located?’ Pyke put the question to Hancock.

  ‘Great, I think, is a misnomer, sir. They employ more bodies than we do at Caedraw but technically ours is a superior operation. With almost half as many workers, our output is nearly the same.’

  Pyke nodded.

  ‘The truth of the matter,’ Hancock added, tapping his nose, ‘is that Josiah Webb is too miserly to invest in new machinery. Instead he relies on manpower to do the work that the giant water wheels and steam engines perform at Caedraw.’

  ‘To be fair to the Webbs,’ Jones interrupted, ‘they’ve been stymied by the issue of the lease at the Morlais works.’

  Hancock glared at the superintendent but remained quiet.

  ‘What issue?’ Pyke asked.

  ‘The lease is up for renewal at the end of this year but the landowner wants thirty thousand a year and Webb is only willing to pay ten. He says he’ll close the works rather than pay thirty.’

  ‘Lease or no lease, it’s true that Caedraw employs fewer workers than Morlais but ours are more skilled, better paid and better motivated. Contrary to what you may hear, sir, we treat our workers with respect – and we pay them in coin, not tokens they can only spend in the company shop.’

  They had turned off the main road into a narrow street. Children as young as three raced alongside the carriage, banging their fists against the wooden panels, trying to frighten the horses. Ash-tips were piled up in front of each house and feral dogs roamed in and out of open doors. It was the smell that was most noticeable, though: an eye-watering stench of human and animal faeces.

  Irish Row was a miserable street running parallel to the main road, fronted on both sides by dilapidated terrace houses, just a single room up and down. Most were sinking into the mud. There were no pavements nor gas lighting but the street was thronged with people; some had just finished their shift and some were about to start. At the far end, the buildings were more substantial and given over to lodging houses and beer shops with names like the Exiles of Erin and the Shamrock. Shafts of light and raucous shouts spilled from half-open doors. Number fifty – where the murdered man had lodged, according to the rent book – was a block farther than the last of the beer shops.

  The carriage came to a sudden halt and was quickly surrounded by children. The driver tried to shoo them away with his whip, to no avail. Some climbed on to the wheels and pressed their faces against the glass.

  ‘You’re to stay in the carriage,’ Jones said to Hancock. ‘Your driver will see that no one bothers you.’

  Hancock nodded. Suddenly the idea of stepping outside his private cocoon didn’t seem too attractive.

  Jones removed his truncheon, and Pyke his pistol, and they opened the door, pushing their way through the crowd of children. Some tried to grab them, others begged for coins. Jones waved them off with his truncheon, then took a lantern from the carriage. Peering in through the front window of number fifty, Pyke couldn’t see any light or sign of life.

  They knocked and, when no one answered, Pyke tried the door and discovered that it was unlocked. They stepped into the low-ceilinged room. The air was dank and mouldy. Jones held up the lantern. There was a chest of drawers pressed up against one of the walls. The drawers themselves were empty or lying on the floor but the ashes in the grate were still warm. A brief search of the rest of the house confirmed that it was deserted.

  ‘Looks like we just missed whoever was here,’ Jones said, looking out at the children’s faces pressed against the window.

/>   But Pyke’s attention had been caught by something in the corner of the room, hidden behind one of the drawers. Bending over, he reached out and retrieved a child’s shoe and coat.

  Back in the carriage, Pyke showed the items to Jonah Hancock. The ironmaster took the coat, pressed it up against his nose and sniffed. Trembling, he handed it back to Pyke.

  ‘That’s my son’s.’

  ‘I want all the stinking lodging and boarding houses in upper and lower Merthyr turned upside down and razed to the ground if needs be.’ Jonah Hancock was pacing up and down in the drawing room. ‘It’s clear that some Paddies have taken my son and I want to know what you intend to do about it.’

  ‘We don’t know for certain that the kidnappers are Irish …’ Pyke paused, trying to gather his thoughts. ‘But it does seem likely that there are two gangs. Presumably the man who was killed, the one sent to collect the first bit of the ransom, didn’t belong to the same gang as the marksmen who shot him.’

  Jonah Hancock didn’t seem to have heard him. ‘I want every Irish pub and beer shop searched …’

  ‘Wait a minute, boy,’ Zephaniah admonished his son. ‘Do we really want to be stirring up a whole hornet’s nest of trouble?’

  This seemed to bring Jonah to his senses. He stopped pacing for a moment and looked at his father.

  ‘Relations between the Irish and the Welsh are tense enough at present,’ Zephaniah croaked. ‘Think what this could do.’

  ‘Your father’s right. We should sit tight for now – until we’ve had a chance to work out who’s got your son,’ Pyke added.

  ‘That’s easy for you to say,’ Jonah spat.

  ‘If we insist that the police ransack the home of every Irishman in town, do you imagine they’ll accept the situation lying down? But they won’t turn on the police. No, they’ll vent their frustration on those nearest to them. And I can assure you, sir, that the natives won’t turn the other cheek. We’ve had a fragile truce between our Welsh and Irish workers these last few years. This could set us back years.’

  Jonah stared at his father, still unconvinced. ‘You’re talking as an ironmaster, sir. I am talking as a father.’

  ‘Nonsense. I want the boy back just as much as you do. But tearing down the town for no good reason is only going to make matters worse.’

  ‘No good reason? We found my son’s coat and one of his shoes in a house on Irish Row. What more reason do you need?’

  The older man dismissed this with a flick of his hand. ‘Can you talk sense into my son, Detective-inspector?’

  Pyke turned to Jonah. ‘Just hold off for a day or two and let me do my job.’ When Jonah didn’t respond, Pyke turned back to the old man. ‘Your son’s right about one thing. The boy’s life is more important than some industrial strife.’

  ‘If I thought it would help, I’d rip apart the town with my bare hands.’ Zephaniah held his hands up and tried to keep them steady. ‘But even if some Irish mob has our boy, which I don’t believe, stomping around Irish Row is only going to put the lad’s life in even more danger.’

  That seemed to cool some of Jonah’s indignation. He turned to Pyke and said, ‘So what do you propose to do, sir?’

  ‘Right now, we’re at the beck and call of the kidnappers. We’re also at the beck and call of another gang who probably don’t have your son. What we need to do is take charge of the situation. Remember: you’ve got something they want. Money. We need to use this fact to dictate our terms to them. No more jumping to someone else’s demands.’

  ‘And how do you suggest we dictate terms to people we don’t know and can’t – at the moment – identify?’

  ‘We let it be known we want to get in touch with the kidnappers. What’s happened has probably unsettled them and they’ll be wary about bringing letters to the Castle. We need to find a third party, an intermediary.’

  ‘What do you propose?’

  ‘The local newspaper.’

  ‘Go on,’ Jonah said.

  ‘We place a personal notice – an oblique one, of course – and wait for a response. Then we make it clear what we want: for example, the terms under which we are prepared to pay the ransom.’

  The tautness in Jonah’s face had disappeared. He turned to Zephaniah. ‘What do you think, Papa?’

  ‘Listen to the man.’ Zephaniah arranged the blanket over his legs. ‘He speaks a lot of sense.’

  A scribbled note from Cathy had been slipped under the door, asking him to meet her outside in the garden next to the fountain.

  Tired but intrigued, Pyke retraced his steps back down the stairs, then passed out of the Castle unnoticed and hurried around the building to the small, enclosed side garden. Cathy was standing under a tree, a black cloak obscuring her face. Startled, she looked up and tried to fall into his arms. As he caught her, Pyke checked to make sure that no one could see them from the Castle. Up close, her eyes were puffy and sore and her lips were stained with wine.

  ‘I had to see you,’ Cathy whispered. ‘I had to know whether you found anything in Dowlais.’

  ‘One of your son’s shoes – and his coat.’

  She gasped and then was silent for a short while. ‘You’re quite sure men from that part of the town have my son?’

  Gently, Pyke tried to extricate himself from her grasp. ‘At the moment, I’m not sure about anything. Look at me, Cathy.’ This time he was rougher and pushed her away so he could see her face. ‘I want to know why – when I first saw you – you said I shouldn’t have come.’

  ‘I don’t remember what I said …’

  ‘You’d been drinking. I could smell the wine on your breath. You barely recognised me.’

  She gave an unpleasant laugh. ‘Did it dent your pride?’

  Pyke tried to make sense of her erratic behaviour, flirting with him one moment then humouring him the next. ‘Something isn’t right here, and I’m not just talking about the fact that your son is missing.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ She stopped fidgeting and stared at him, her eyes glinting in the moonlight.

  ‘Both the man who was shot and the men who shot him had to have known about the kidnapping and the second ransom letter.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘One group has your son, the other group doesn’t. How did they both know about the arrangements?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Pyke let her go but she remained where she was. ‘Why did your husband write to me, Cathy? Why me and not someone else?’

  ‘You’ll have to ask him. I can only speculate. But I do know word of your success at Scotland Yard has travelled.’ She was shivering slightly in the cold.

  ‘But you didn’t write to me, did you?’

  Cathy avoided his eyes and let out a small sigh. ‘Perhaps you’re unaware of the division of duties and responsibilities in a marriage. I could never have proposed such a thing without my husband’s sanction.’

  Pyke reached out and touched Cathy’s cheek. When she still refused to look at him, he moved his finger down to her chin and gently lifted her face. ‘Who do you think has your son, Cathy?’ He knew what he was thinking was a bad idea, but he couldn’t deny he found her attractive and he could see that she was drawn to him. It was a dangerous combination, her vulnerability and his loneliness.

  A flash of anger lit up her eyes. ‘Do you really think I wouldn’t have told you if I had my suspicions? If I was forced to guess, I’d say it was someone my husband had wronged in business. But that would be pure conjecture.’

  Pyke watched as Cathy slipped the cloak back over her head. ‘It’s getting late,’ he said. ‘We should go back to our rooms before we’re missed.’

  Cathy’s eyes fell to the ground. ‘Of course. My husband will be wondering where I am.’

  Pyke started to walk back towards the Castle but then stopped and turned around.

  Cathy still hadn’t moved. ‘If you find my son and bring him back to me safely, I’ll be indebted to you for the rest of m
y life.’

  The following morning, Pyke collected Johns in the Hancock’s open-topped phaeton and backtracked first of all to Caedraw before turning on to Pennydarren Road and following it up the hill to Morlais. In the phaeton next to them was the body of the Irishman who’d been shot and killed up near the old quarry. Briefly Pyke told the former soldier what he intended to do. Once he’d listened to Pyke’s proposal, Johns rubbed his chin.

  ‘You think this is a good idea?’

  Pyke shrugged. ‘Someone must know who he is.’

  ‘But it’s not treating the dead man with much respect, is it?’

  These words echoed around Pyke’s head as he lugged the corpse into the first beer shop they came to on Irish Row and dumped it on to the floor.

  The beer shop was called the Exiles of Erin and reeked of stale bodies and gin. A few sullen-faced men dressed in ragged clothes stood near the counter. They watched as Pyke turned the body over, so that the dead man was lying face up.

  ‘I want a name.’ No one looked up at him and no one uttered a word. Johns stood in the doorway, arms folded.

  ‘Who is he?’

  When no one answered again, Johns barked a few words at them in what Pyke presumed was Welsh. One of the men looked up at Pyke and then at Johns and suddenly darted for the back door. He was too quick for either of them so instead of chasing after the man, Pyke took out his pistol and let the rest of the men in the beer shop see it.

  ‘This man was shot and killed up near the old quarry. Apparently he lodged at a place here on Irish Row, number fifty.’ As Pyke waited for Johns to translate, he tried to assess the reactions of the men standing in front of him. They watched him carefully, not moving, not even looking at each other.

  Eventually a man at the far end of the counter – tall with broad shoulders and sandy-coloured hair – took a step forward and peered down at the dead body. When Johns asked him something, he hesitated then rattled off a few sentences.

  ‘His name’s Deeney. Just off the boat from Dublin, came here like everyone else to look for work. Kept himself to himself, no family, no real friends, a loner.’ Johns turned from Pyke to the man who’d told him this. ‘Apparently the dead man didn’t lodge at number fifty. No one does. Place has been unoccupied for months.’